Flying is a complex activity, and it demands focus, forethought, and an ongoing safety-minded decision making process. That being the case, it wasn't a tremendous surprise that when the NTSB released its "Most Wanted List for 2013" a few weeks ago, three of the ten topics related directly to general aviation. While that emphasis on aviation is down from five topics in 2012, we as a community should be looking at these areas as opportunities for improvement. And remember, flight fans, improvements in safety directly relate to lower accident and incident rates, and that's good for all of us.

General aviation made its debut on the NTSB's Most Wanted List in 2012, so we are still relative newcomers to this list, first created in 1990. It's not that we haven't needed special focus before 2012, but rather that the NTSB realizes that our accident rate has largely flatlined over the last decade. We've stopped improving ourselves. Further, the Board has started to see that some causal factors in transportation accidents overlap between different transportation mediums. Interesting thought, no? Ever consider how operations in your Cessna 172 might be similar to a passenger train? The NTSB does. So what does all this mean? What are these most wanted topics? Ask and you shall receive.

I watched a private pilot (on a recurrent checkout flight mind you) carry out a full text message conversation on a taxiway at one of the busiest towered airports in the country - an airport that also happens to have a very complicated taxiway layout. As a flight instructor, I like to give my clients a chance to make some bad choices. I never let it get to a point where safety is compromised, but I do like to see how these people think and what is going through their minds when they're operating an aircraft. Sometimes I'm just shocked. In the case of the misguided texter, he turned at a runway intersection instead of continuing to the runway end as he had been instructed by ATC. When asked by the tower why he didn't taxi to the runway end, he replied that he thought that he had. We had to wait an extended period of time before back-taxiing to the runway end; we would never have gotten airborne from the intersection where he stopped. His pride got dinged, but he learned a lesson, and so did I. Distractions are a real thing in the cockpit, and as more technology fills our cockpits, both that stuff mounted on the panel and that stuff we hold in our hands, we are more and more prone to use that technology while forgetting to take care of the immediate needs of the moment first, like taxiing or flying the airplane safely!

Effective cockpit management techniques combined with automation and task management skills are the only safeguard against distraction in the cockpit. Whether you are behind the airplane or trying to see what's cooking for dinner, distractions are a real safety nightmare. The truth is that these situations are becoming more and more frequent, regardless of what mode of transportation you look at. Good CFIs are already simulating information/automation overload situations and training pilots to think their way out of these occurrences. Effective training on the front end is the best way to ensure you don't find yourself in the situation at all, but if you get stuck in a distraction log jam, good training will also teach you how to get out.

As I've said a million times, general aviation as a community has to band together to show that we don't want to be a problem; rather, we want to solve a problem that we all acknowledge actually exists. Take a look at the NTSB's Most Wanted for 2013, and read the write-ups for each focus area, especially those that deal directly with general aviation. It's educational and helps build our awareness of what is going on in the industry as a whole. Follow up with training, whether of your own design or with a competent CFI or fellow pilot. General aviation safety can improve, but only if general aviation makes it so.

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